There seems to have been a change of heart since those plans were written. The DOT, responding to concerns raised by the Conservation Law Foundation and others, added $150 million today to its capital plan for bus procurements. The money wouldn’t be spent until a few years from now: $75 million in the 2018 fiscal year, and another $75 million in 2019. The MBTA, meanwhile, increased its allocation to $205 million.

Sara Lavoie, a spokeswoman for MassDOT, tells me the agency’s five-year capital plan would remain at $12.4 billion, and that the agency would make adjustments to its highway funds to pay for the bus purchases.

Lavoie says agency officials needed to make tough choices when initially drawing up the capital plan, given the diverse transportation needs statewide. But the agency decided to alter its stance on bus purchases because of the public feedback.

It’s hard to argue that the MBTA’s aging fleet isn’t in need of some updating. Federal guidelines say a bus reaches the end of its “useful life” after 12 years. The MBTA tries to obtain an average of 7.5 years. But the average lifespan among the MBTA’s fleet of 930 or so buses — excluding the ones that use the Silver Line tunnel in South Boston or the overhead power lines in Cambridge — is more like 8.6 years.

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